Worn Photo Shoot from Lara Kaluza on Vimeo.
So we are all busy bees here at the Worn Journal office. We’re getting ready for issue 8: the Shoe Issue and overdosing on platforms, pumps, and plimsolls. Marty and Lara, two of our favourite creatives from Montreal, spent last weekend shooting ladies’ legs and vegan shoes from Duckie. They sent me a little movie they made setting it up. Yay!
In the late 60s, Anton Perich ran an underground film program in Paris that screened the early works of Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas. When he moved to New York City in the 1970s, he freelanced photography gigs for Interview Magazine and ran one of the very first ‘underground’ cable access shows. He was even an ‘early pioneer’ of digital art, having invented in the late ’70s an ‘electric painting machine’ that was a precursor to the ink-jet printer.
Mr. Perich’s most accessible legacy however, lies in is his YouTube channel, and the uploaded classic fashion show footage he shot during that hedonistic Loft Party/Studio 54 era (the above photo is a Perich — see Andy, Jerry, Paloma and Truman). The videos are shaky and even blurry at times, but don’t let that get in the way of your viewing pleasure. It’s a wonderful documentation of how ye old fashion show might have been presented — on a stage, minus the runway. Given the recent inclination for designers to eschew the typical Fashion Week presentation for more creative events and installations, it’s a wonderful reveal that the more things might change, the more they’ll stay the same (ie. let’s put on a show!).
There’s a Kenzo show where the models prance out in high leather boots, twirling with style to the deep disco and if you look closely, you might spot Jerry Hall, Iman, Patti Hansen (cause everyone was there). Perich even caught a few historical firsts, such as Issey Miyake’s 1975 FIT show (his first in NY). It’s high drama via fuzzy black and white video: models coolly stride out (oh my, is that Pat Cleveland?) to wailing Robert Fripp guitars and Kraftwerk blips (a perfect accompaniment for his billowing and transformative windcoat shapes).
My favourite footage? Grace Jones getting her hair cut. Srsly. It’s a quiet moment between performer and hair dresser that’s incredibly intimate. Get thee to Perich’s channel and watch it for yourself.
-Rea McNamara
COMPLEX GEOMETRIES SS09 from JASON LAST on Vimeo.
Instead of a typical runway show, complexgeometries has been making little film shorts of the current line. It’s pretty brilliant, since designer Clayton Evan’s work doesn’t exactly fit in with the whole Montreal Fashion Week look, and it has the potential to reach a much larger audience. Plus the video rules.
